


that thing (my soul) was a lost star

by nea_writes



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Canon Universe, Character Development, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 10:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15628743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nea_writes/pseuds/nea_writes
Summary: Kanda had never been kind to Allen, and despite knowing Allen wanted nothing more than to break where no one could see him, Kanda would not allow him that dignity. It was only fair, after all, that he do the same thing to Allen that Allen did to him.Forever meddling and sacrificing and crying and never ever giving up no matter how Kanda tried, even when he’d fatally stabbed Allen and still taken all he could from him, a price too much to pay for a solace Kanda never knew he could attain.





	that thing (my soul) was a lost star

**Author's Note:**

> DGM update spoilers!
> 
> This is a direct continuation of Night 229, and what might happen going from there. It's difficult, writing that turning point in a character's development where they wrestle with who they were and who they want to be and who they'e becoming. Both Kanda and Allen are changing, but it's happening at the most inopportune time. 
> 
> So, maybe, Kanda will finally say what he has to.

Kanda stumbled from the doorway, landing hard enough on his knees to make him wince and hiss. It was only when he braced himself did he recognize the white smooth tile. The air was no longer humid and heavy but light with an arid summer warmth, and the sun rested on his hair as Kanda looked up, finding Allen’s back.

It was obvious he was trembling even from this distance, head bowed and hands clenched at his sides, as if bearing the weight of the world on his back. Kanda had never quite seen the moment a man broke. He’d seen the consequences, the results, and Alma’s tear-lined smile flashed in his mind’s eye, but he’d never seen the deciding moment.

This was it, and Kanda felt woefully under-prepared, silent, voice choked.

“Leave,” Allen said, voice thin and breathy. Allen exhaled shallowly, carefully, as if through clenched teeth. “Please, Kanda.”

Kanda glanced behind him and found a house, with a single doorway open to a gnawing empty blackness. There were steps up to the door, and the windows lined with potted plants were opaque, reflecting the endless forever blue sky. The house was one of many all along a line behind Kanda, and Allen stood in the middle of a road.

Kanda knew the moment he stepped through that door, it’d be the last he saw of ‘Allen.’ The same senses that whispered suspicion and caution and warned Kanda when Neah was there were telling him this now — this was Kanda’s last chance.

 _“Kanda,”_  Allen begged, and in that trembling voice Kanda’s name sounded itself like a cry, a sob Allen couldn’t call forth anymore.

But Kanda had never been kind to Allen, and despite knowing Allen wanted nothing more than to break where no one could see him, Kanda would not allow him that dignity. It was only fair, after all, Kanda thought as he stood brushing dirt from his clothes, that he do the same thing to Allen that Allen did to him.

Forever meddling and sacrificing and crying and never ever giving up no matter how Kanda tried, even when he’d fatally stabbed Allen and still taken all he could from him, a price too much to pay for a solace Kanda never knew he could attain.

Allen had given him Alma and an ending of their own volition, on their own terms, a final chance to love Alma. Kanda wouldn’t — couldn’t — back down now.

Kanda would pay back that debt even if Allen hurt him and pushed him away and cut where he knew bled the most, because Kanda had done the same, and Allen had never stopped trying.

He moved forward, until only mere feet separated them. Allen’s breath exhaled shakily at his approach.

“Kanda,” Allen whispered, still facing away. “Don’t. Just go. I can’t carry this anymore. Haven’t you taken enough?”

Kanda bit back on his teeth. This was how far gone Allen was, how  _desperate,_  that he’d throw even Alma at Kanda’s face.

"No," Kanda said, forcing his words and tone to be level. It was a losing battle, though. Kanda wanted to grab Allen by his collar and shake him until he finally saw reason again. He wanted to shout at him, demand he stop being an idiot, to let Kanda  _help him._ But that's all Kanda had ever done in the past, and he'd learned that Allen  _never fucking listened._

"You don't get a choice," Allen sneered, finally turning to face him. Whatever grief he'd been harboring was hidden under a mask of incredulity and anger. Kanda had seen Allen truly enraged only a handful of times, and this was one of them. "I don't want you here, Kanda, in fact I was happy thinking you were  _dead."_

Kanda scowled, struggling to comb through Allen's words to find the kernel of truth. "You're fucking full of it," Kanda spat, moving closer and further from the doorway still looming behind him. Allen stiffened, leaning back. "You cried for him," Kanda said, and despite the anger at Allen's hypocrisy running strife through him, Kanda couldn't help the brief moment of relief the thought of Alma always brought him now. "You're angry because I'm  _here_ and not where you think I should be. Fucking idiot," Kanda added. 

Allen's brows shot towards his hairline and he laughed, ugly. "Kanda I have more things to worry about than you being an idiot. Don't you get it? I don't want you here. Why are you even here? We don't like each other."

"I can't fucking stand you," Kanda agreed, stepping closer, until Allen moved a foot back. '

"Then I don't understand," Allen said, frustration evident in his words and the way his hands trembled. "Do you even know what you're doing? What being here means?"

Too many words crowded Kanda's head, stumbling on his tongue and knocking around until he couldn't string a single sentence of coherence. All he knew was what he felt and what he wanted, and did it really matter if Kanda said anything at all? Allen would never listen. "You..." Kanda grabbed Allen just above his elbow, jerking him closer. His thumb pressed painfully into Allen's clothes until a divot formed, and Allen's brow knit with a scowl. "Why do you think I'm here?"

Allen lifted his chin up, eyes flashing with defiance, and then turned his head aside, taking a shaking, steadying, breath. He was still at the edge and the performance he was putting on for Kanda's sake was not only unnecessary, but taking a toll on him. "I don't care what you think you're trying to accomplish aside from your own early death. Don't you get it, Kanda? I don't want you to die." Allen smiled, a tiny small gesture as his gaze lowered to the ground. "I can't stand you, but it doesn't mean I didn't want happiness for you. For him."

Kanda was so close he could see the muscle jumping in Allen's jaw as he grit his teeth, so close he could feel the tremble that had overtaken him. Allen sucked in a tight breath, and then another, holding it before expelling it slowly in a practice Kanda recognized. Allen was still valiantly trying to control himself.

"I don't care about happiness," Kanda said, gruff and chafed raw, the last word spoken with disdain.  _I don't care about living._ "I made a promise and I'm not going to fail on account of a dumbass like you."

"Exactly!" Allen jerked the arm Kanda held up but Kanda's grip arrested the movement. Allen whipped around to glare at him, eyes shining too bright. "What does any of this have to do with me? Why are you here? What more do you need from  _me?"_

Unsaid but ringing loudly in the silence between them,  _I don't have anything left to give._

Allen wasn't going to stop until he had an answer, but Kanda couldn't bring himself to say what he had to. 

Kanda nearly tore his hair out with frustration. "You... you can't you think of a single reason why I'd be here when I don't even like you?"

Allen stared back incredulously. "No, I can't Kanda. Forgive me for not having the same idiotic thought process as you."

They normally fought and insulted each other, but the sheer amount of times Allen had leveled an ugly remark at him was off the charts. Normally he was more insincere, lying with the obvious intent of having Kanda  _know_ he was lying, just to add insult to injury. It was a sobering reminder that Allen couldn't even dredge up the pleasant facade he'd maintained before. Of course, it was at his most frustrated that Kanda remembered Tiedoll's words.

Kanda focused on controlling his breathing, calming and centering himself so he could focus on what he had to do, on what he was here for. It wasn't to argue with Allen, or make a shit situation even worse.

He eased off the pressure on Allen's arm until he was more cradling it than anything. 

"I'm here for you," Kanda said, quiet in the wake of the new silence. 

Allen stilled, and when Kanda met his gaze he found him wide-eyed with disbelief. 

"You... what you did," Kanda grit his teeth, unintentionally squeezing Allen again as he tried to regain control. It wasn't easy, being honest and vulnerable where he'd spent nearly a decade burying it all under anger and rage. "I took too much," Kanda said, and there was the crux of it.

The guilt.

The regret.

The resentment for himself, at what he'd done. The cost he'd taken. 

For once there was no anger or wrath, just steady, unrelenting, regret. 

"I'm here for you," Kanda continued as Allen watched him, something indecipherable rising in his gaze, in the way his breath sped up. "To be the one who'll kill that bastard if you can't control him. To be your reassurance. I hate you," Kanda said, with such intense honesty it shocked himself. 

He hated Allen Walker. Allen, who had disturbed Kanda so thoroughly that there was no going back, who was forcing Kanda to change, who was light-years ahead of him and looking back with that damning smile on his face. Allen, who had given him Alma.

"But I don't hate you enough," Kanda continued, "that I'd let my mistakes be the reason you fail. It's my fault," Kanda tried to keep the anguish from his voice, the regret, but now that he was talking it was like he couldn't stop. The dam on what he'd hidden for years was broken. "I did this to you. I won't run away from my mistakes. I won't let someone else pay for what I've done."

Allen was shaking his head before Kanda had even finished, face cast in sorrow and hurt. Always the fucking martyr, even when Kanda had never wanted him to be. "No," Allen murmured, stance crumbling into something malleable and heartbroken. "No, Kanda, I never saw it that way. This was inevitable. It was planned long before we met. You were just a variable among many in an imperfect plan." 

Alarm bells rang in Kanda's head, a deafening cacophony, but what he had to address was right before him. "Don't be a damn idiot," Kanda seethed. "I  _stabbed_ you. With Mugen. With Innocence. You can't even control that bastard anymore and it's because I woke him up in the first place. I..." Kanda took a steadying breath. "I saw him, way back in Paris. But I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to—"

 _"I didn't say anything,"_  Kanda continued, speaking over Allen's attempt to crucify himself again. "Because I knew what he'd do. To you. To the Order. And I wanted it to happen."

"Don't flatter yourself," Kanda went on as Allen stared in stunned silence. "It's not that I did it to  _you,_ but I hated the Order that much that I knew... what would happen. And did it anyways."

He wasn't that different from Alma, after all.

The both of them, brought crying and begging back from a solace they'd always secretly wanted, a sort of freedom they'd never given voice to. 

Kanda raised his eyes to Allen's, smiling self-deprecatingly. "But I regret it. And now, this regret won't leave me be."

There were tears in Allen's eyes and he bowed his head, shoulders shaking as he valiantly tried not to cry. He whispered something Kanda couldn't hear and Kanda leaned down, feeling the strange urge to cradle Allen. It was as if something was breaking before him, bit by bit, fraying and crumbling at the edges, and Kanda was desperately trying to keep the pieces together in his cupped hands.

"What?"

"I don't blame you," Allen whispered, then looked up, smiling, smiling, always smiling even when he looked heartbroken. "How could I blame you? You, Alma... you didn't deserve that."

Allen brought his hand up, rubbing the heel of his palm into his eyes. "I wanted to save you."

"You stupid beansprout," Kanda said, words barely climbing out from the vice-hold that had somehow clamped tight around his voice. "Nobody asked you to."

Allen laughed, watery. "Kanda, even if I knew all of this would happen, I still would've done it. I don't regret it."

_I don't regret it._

An idiot, Allen was such an idiot, and here Kanda was, indebted to him of all people, desperately trying to pay back a debt Allen didn't even think existed. 

Yet, all Kanda could think of was Alma, his smile, his laugh, his tears. There was no one else alive who remembered him except Allen. 

Kanda stared at the tears Allen was still trying to hold back, felt his own eyes dry as the arid land they'd fallen into, and tried, one more time, to do that which he couldn't before.

Allen made it look so easy to be selfless when it costed him blood and tears. It was time Kanda pay that debt back.

"Can I ask you something?"

Startled, Allen looked up and, after a moment's hesitation, nodded.

"No one... no one else remembers him," Kanda said. "Knows him. Could you... think of him?"

He would not give Allen Alma's last moments but... he'd give Allen a reason to grieve, at Kanda's behest.

Allen cried and Kanda held onto him and he wondered, briefly, if Alma's soul would one day come back. It was a stupid hope, a dying hope, but Allen's idiocy seemed to be contagious, because all Kanda could wish was for a future where Alma existed once again. 

 But this was an outlet where Allen could grieve, because there was no fear of the Earl finding him or Alma, and Kanda vowed to at least be, safely, a place where Allen could rest. 

**Author's Note:**

> “and I didn’t care  
> and I was alone  
> and there had been war,  
> and that thing (my soul)  
> was a lost star  
> or a lost boat  
> adrift."


End file.
